White Chocolate | The Bruery

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The primary component of our "White Oak" ale is a 100% barrel aged wheat wine that we affectionately refer to as "White Oak Sap." Essentially a "summer" barley-wine style ale, but made with a wheat heavy grain base, White Oak Sap is aged in used bourbon barrels for nearly a year and comes out rich in flavors of coconut, honey, caramel and vanilla. To compliment the already rich flavors of the beer, we've added cacao nibs and vanilla beans to give this beer the delicate flavor of white chocolate...hence the name.

More User Reviews:

750ml, white and silver foil-capped bottle - I like how this brewery's labels seem like something right out of post-Prohibition: 'Contains Alcohol' is almost as prominent as this offering's name, for crying out loud.

This beer pours a murky, dark apricot amber colour, with three fingers of puffy, loosely foamy, and fizzy tan head, which leaves a few instances of disintegrating ice floe lace around the glass as it slowly but surely sinks away.

It smells of pungent Bourbon barrel notes (vanilla, spicy rye alcohol, and musty wood), some bready and doughy caramel malt, milk chocolate, those vanillan cookie things, faint domestic citrus peel, and some very tame earthy, weedy, and floral green hop bitters. The taste is semi-sweet, bready and treacly caramel malt, the same heady oaken essences as in the aroma, some arising warmed citrus juiciness, those white chocolate-laced, um, seashell chocolates that are always around at Christmas parties, a hint of earthy clover honey, and some rather mild perfumed floral hoppiness.

The carbonation is fairly active in its mostly supportive frothiness, the body a solid medium-heavy weight, and generally smooth, as the whole artisanal cocoa thing goes the long mile here. It finishes well off-dry, the malt, barrel, and two guest stars mixing and mingling like the lingering bosses they wanna be.

Overall, this is one big and brash (quelle surprise!) brew from this OC/SoCal/WC operation - the base wheatwine comes through only because I was informed as such, otherwise I would have guessed that it was some sort of strong Belgian golden ale. Whatever, it's sweet, yet balanced, and with a vin de table strength that is more or less hidden in the depths of its complex flavour.

Before even seeing this bottle, and knowing little about The Bruery (had only tried the Tart of Darkness prior). First nose and sip I was convinced this was a sour. A delicious one at that. Was drunk at a bottle share so can't say much about my 2-3oz pour. But later found out that this was totally infected. Hoping to try it non-infected but would gladly buy this as a sour.

Terrible. No white chocolate, no vanilla, no cocoa, no bourbon. Sour and tart. A huge disappointment. I've had an infected cacaonut and this wasn't as god-awful but it wasn't good. Most expensive drain pour I've had yet. It took me a long time to land this and it was beyond an epic disappointment. Given the choice of bein forced to drink this or my own urine, I'd pick urine. Uhh

Consumed with my brewing buddy and perhaps 8 other people - we anticipated extreme sweetness and dessert-like boozy consistency for this so it was the only way to get through it. 2013 vintage. Poured out of a 750ml bottle into a teku glass.

Pours a remarkably pale golden color that makes this seem nearly identical to any other Belgian blond ale of sorts - that, is, until you start swirling the glass, which shows an enormous amount of viscosity and alcohol legs right away. At the percentage of alcohol on this, it honestly comes as no surprise that it would end up this way. There's amazingly some carbonation and head at the beginning, but it dissipates into a modest ring that is met with some lacing. There's some sediment at the bottom that is caramel colored, and reminds me of an older wine. Modest stuff, but still imposing.

Holy hell! I have no idea how they put their minds together at The Bruery to make a beer that smelled EXACTLY like white chocolate but they definitely did it. Notes of white chocolate, vanilla beans, caramel, marzipan, almonds, white grapes, pears, raisins, and bourbon barrel flavors (which impart some butterscotch, toffee, and slight breadiness) make this a complex, hedonistic, yet unbelievably wonderful offering to whiff on. Not as sweet as I expected, and the booze is amazingly well hidden. Well done, guys. A true masterwork here.

The flavor does not quite reach the perfection of the aroma, but it's still an astonishing drink to be reckoned with in the long run. I admit I was pretty impressed with this, so much that I had two to three more small pours to enjoy. There's a lot of layers going on here, and these guys have figured out how to make a successful decadent dessert beer right here. At first there's an immediate wash of bourbon notes, which give off intense flavors of vanilla, light coconut, nutmeg, pears, and corn sweetened flavors. Then, everything melts in a slightly buttery, sweetened manner and reveals the notes of white chocolate, almonds, candied apples, raisins, oak, cedar, tobacco, and light leather in a fabulous manner. The wheat becomes highly present as this warms up, and provides a crackly, freshly baked bread flavor that accentuates the chocolate and sweetness to the point where this is in the same vein to a macadamia white chocolate cookie. However, this is far more refined than that - excellent wood, bready flavor, sweetened spices and fruit and nuts come in to make this wholly memorable. Truly an excellent beer in its caliber.

Would it be possible to make a better "wheatwine" than this? There's so much going on in a beer that seemed destined to be a booze and sugar bomb. The blending is magnificent here, and the flavors come in spades in a way that this would please beer, bourbon, and wine drinkers alike. A true pleasure to sip on. I wish I had more bottles that I could cellar and see how this would develop over time. Highly recommended - the first beer from these guys that I can safely say was mind-blowing.

This was definitely an infected bottle yet I decided to review the beer anyway because it turned out to be well worth drinking. The vanilla, cacao, and bourbon treatment made for a really interesting flavour profile when combined with the sourness from the infection. A happy accident.